I can't speak to the other parks that had chalk boxes because I wasn't there, but at BLD the batter's boxes were positioned exactly to specification at 4' forward and 3' to the rear from the point of the "elbow" of the plate ... I know because I measured them with a tape measure at the Southwest Championships in April ... Also, the front of the strike mat should be aligned with the front edge of the home plate, so that should not be a technical placement problem either ...

As mentioned above, the big problem at BLD was the inability of players to wipe the lines to create either [1] a larger roaming area from which to hit, or [2] confusion on the part of umpires who would have to extrapolate the former location of the lines before they were wiped ...

As the Field Director at Big League Dreams, I am certain the batter's boxes were not a technical, but rather a player, problem ... They are sized to official specification and are appropriately positioned ... The big difference at BLD was the inability of the leadoff batter to wipe the front line or the second batter to wipe the inside line, thus allowing subsequent batters to wander anywhere they wished ... Those who were called out at BLD for being out of the batter's box should maybe have been looking in the mirror for the culprit(s) instead of voicing objections to the umpires and Tournament Staff ...

Don ... A couple of quick observations ... The SSUSA Field Director at your park in Las Vegas, although he does attend the sessions, is not a voting member of the SSUSA Rules Committee ... Here's what the motion should probably be, to maintain fairness ...

Proposed - In elimination play, the team coming through the winner's bracket to the final game automatically earns the option to select home team status. In the event of an "If" game, a coin flip will determinethe team winning Championship Game #1 shall have the option to select home team status. All in favor . . . .

Some teams have expressed a desire to be Visitor and your proposal would deny them that choice because they are unbeaten ... This final two game series becomes, in effect, a true "Home and Home" affair as modified above, which is fair ... My personal view is that your proposal would not be able to "count to seven" on the 13-member Rules Committee vote otherwise ...

Men's 50+ are online now ... Should finish all 40's today and keep chipping away at it over the next few days ... Mike: We envy the Huntsman Foundation having probably a $100 mil. or so in the bank and a thousand paid and volunteer workers staffing the Huntsman Games ... Makes it a lot easier to accomplish "wish list" items! ...

LeeLee50 ... ALL of the available complexes meeting tournament specifications as to fence distances that were made available to us were used, with one exception ... The Cheyenne Complex in N. Las Vegas could have been used but wasn't ... N. Las Vegas has almost completed a major renovation of the fields there, but the circumstances are a lot like last year at Sunset Park ... We chose not to go there this year until the facility renovation is complete ... Excluding last-game-of-the-day time slots where we could maybe have gone later into the night, we fit the 1,713 game schedule into the 1,720 game slot inventory ...

Had a similar play at BLD involving a 3B chasing a runner home toward the commitment line ... The moment the runner crossed the commitment line, he slammed on the brakes, but did NOT back up, and the 3B ran into him from behind, touching him with the ball in his free hand ... Umpire awarded the run because of the "tag" inside the commitment line ... As the Field Director, I confirmed the call and complimented the base runner on a very head's up play ...

jimperry19 ... Thank you for your observations ... Here is what I believe is your principal concern: Why was a bracket game that went off as scheduled played under a shortened format? ... The answer is that the Field Director misunderstood the application of Rulebook §11.1(1) for making up the lost games from the Friday evening storm and made a mistake ... I am the author of the 1,700+ game master schedule for the event and was part of a group (including Terry Hennessy, Fran Dowell and all of the affected Field Directors) that performed the adverse-weather reschedule of the 40 or so games lost on Friday night across several playing venues ...

In the matter of the 139-game 50-AAA bracket, we lost the eight 5:30 PM games that were underway and the six 7:00 PM games in their entirety on Friday evening ... Those games would have taken three hours to complete on the schedule ... Our inclement weather make-up procedure calls for 5-inning games until the schedule is back on time, under our belief that playing modified games is preferable to canceling games ...

Losing three hours on Friday would calculate to the one hour shortened games for the first six rounds of games (7:30 AM through 12:30 PM) on Saturday and being back on schedule (in theory) by 1:30 PM ... Games after that time should have reverted back to the full hour and a half schedule if all was running as planned ... In a worst case situation, maybe one more round of shortened games would have been required, but certainly not as late as your 4:30 PM game ...

This was our mistake, for which we apologize, and is a mistake we will learn from ...

We hope this is helpful in understanding what happened and how it did ...

The 55-AAA Three-game-guarantee Bracket is currently under construction and should be posted shortly ... The fields at BLD for Saturday and Sunday are (National side) Wrigley, Dodger, Crosley, (American side) Fenway, Yankee and Angel ... There will be 17 bracket games Friday evening from 5:30 through 8:30 PM game starts, assuming we stay on time ... Saturday will have 58 bracket games, on six fields across through 7:30 PM and four more 9:00 PM Elimination Bracket games ... The remaining 11 bracket games (with the eight "survivors") will play on Sunday from 8:00 AM through a potential "If" game at 3:30 PM ...

No the scores are not going to be posted daily ... The 2014 Eastern's had 61 teams playing a potential total of 196 games (before the rains reduced that significantly) at a single facility with nine fields and a lot of down time due to weather ... The World Masters has 506 teams playing a potential total of 1,713 games on 13 softball complexes comprised of 42 fields ... Last weekend, "daily" ended at sometime near or after midnight at several locations ... Please feel free, though, to join the "dog pile" in the related thread titled Vegas Updates herein ...

ChileHead ... It's anybody's tournament right now! ... We've got a 203-way tie for first place thru Wednesday, and we're reasonably sure that will hold up through Thursday ... Mike, can you send him one of them fancy promotional calendars I'm sure your firm must have laying around somewhere?

OK guys ... Thanks for the critical eye on things ... Much appreciated! ... The revised Master Planning Grid and 50-Major and 50-AAA schedule sets are now on line ... I think it's clear sailing for Session #1 now ... [Quoting the Captain of the RMS Titanic]

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